2015 ACCELERATE - LONDON, UK WEEK 1

2015 ACCELERATE - LONDON, UK WEEK 1
I arrived from Perth to Sydney  on Thursday 12 November 2015 and check in to an amazing deluxe apartment at Vibe Hotel on Rushcutters Bay NSW.

The British Council wanted everyone to arrive a day prior to take off so we could all have send off breakfast together before departing for 21 hour flight to London UK.

The next morning, we were advised to arrive at lovely local café for pre-flight brunch at 10:30am.

We met Marcus and his partner Sharni at the airport but we had to wait around due to delayed by 1hr due to major electrical thunder storm and raining.

ACCELER8 CREW = Emma Loban, Carly Sheppard ,TJ Cowlishaw, Marcus Corowa + Angela Flynn (L-R).

TRAVEL ITINERARY
10:30                      Arrival at Cafe
10:30 - 12:30          Brunch with Helen O'Neil + Erica McCalman from British Council
12:30 - 14:00          Catch taxi to airport                             
14:30 - 15:00          Check in + bag drop at British Airways
15:00 - 16:00          Customs and Security checks
16:00 - 16:30          Go to gate
16:45                      Scheduled to depart for Singapore
17:45                      Departure for Singapore (8 hours)
17:45 - 1:45            Arrival in Singapore + Depart for London (13 hours)

2:30 - 15:45            Arrival in London (- 8 hours behind = lose 1 day) arrive at 7am

SINAGPORE - STOP OFF

Arrived at Singapore Changi Airport around 1:50am. We had time for a quick stretch of legs and toilet then back into customs and security checks within 30mins.

ARRIVAL AT HEATHROW

Arrived at London Heathrow Airport around 6:50am. Now a 1 hour wait for customs and then another 1 hour drive to get to our accommodation.

Check out this insane line up at Heathrow airport!

So happy after waiting forever through UK customs that Erica from British Council had organised us a hotel bus transfer to our accommodation! Especially after that huge nearly 24 hour flying and  then through customs + baggage collection I couldn't think of anything worse than carting across my two suitcases through London on the Tube.


ARRIVAL AT MARLIN APARTMENTS

After 1 hour transfer we finally arrived at our destination and we checked into a 2 bedroom apartments in Borough near London Bridge called Marlin Apartments. Arrive to cold, dark and raining to such a beautiful accommodation.

This was the view from our apartment in London UK.

After arriving on Saturday morning, it was an intensive flight across so I decided to chill + relax at apartment to get my body into the flow of the new time difference and get into mode for our UK meetings which commenced on the next day on Sunday. Most of the others hit the ground running and went shopping at Oxford Circus + Trafalgar Square, some meet up with friends at the pub.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS The next day we all headed to the end of the train tracks to High Barnett to visit Nicola Turner our UK personal development manager where we attended 1 day Leadership Development workshop with Mark Wright from People Create Ltd.

Here's a great behind the scenes shot taken at lunchtime by Angela Flynn. Photograph includes Emma Loban, Mark Wright, TJ Cowlishaw, Erica McCalman, Nicola Turner, Carly Sheppard and Marcus Corowa (L-R).

Stay tuned for more behind the scenes of 2015 British Council - ACCELERATE program for next 4 weeks!

Keep working hard, believing in yourself + never stop dreaming!

TJ xo